I am in touching distance of a first draft of my book; a plan to go on retreat at the end of February ensuring I keep a fire under me. The retreat will be mornings of practice, afternoons of reading and editing. Just the thought of being in Normandy, withdrawn into my sources of nourishment …
I can’t quite believe it is two months since I blogged. It’s not the first time there has been a lag between posts; but this time it was very much a conscious decision. What writing time I have had needed to go towards book writing and edging my way through the 60 or so essays …
This week I have been queuing up ideas around how my approach to therapy might fit with a description of bio-psycho-social-spiritual; building on the ideas of Engel (1977) who first proposed the “biological, psychological, and social, must be taken into account in every health care task”. A philosophy of clinical care (a way of understanding …
Another enjoyable week devoting much of my time to writing. I am progressing well with the essays that will form part 3 of my book Humanistic psychotherapy: experiencing second order change. This week I want to share an essay focusing on the dialectic of empathy and challenge; one we might summarise through the sentiment of not …
Yesterday was our teaching team’s annual “away day”. Impacted by the retirement of one of our senior faculty and the changes in the curriculum this would be necessitated, this year’s theme was coming back to the philosophical underpinnings of our psychodynamic and humanistic courses. I was delighted to have this opportunity to discuss the very …
Settling into my new environment, post retreat, entering the mandala…each pointing to something starting afresh, a toward becoming. The demands of spring dissolve into expectations and hopes for the summer ahead. Hence why on Wednesday this week I took myself “out on a date”, a mini writing retreat over in my old town of Eastbourne. …
This post was to share my most recent “blog to book” intention, having used this model of developing content successfully last time around. And I still do want to (and will) share some of my plans ahead for book 2 on humanistic psychotherapy. I want to share how last week, the day I spent reacquainting …
As I sit and start writing this first blog for a while, I connect with the memory of how I started my blogging career “like this” – a savoured moment sat in the corner of a cafe. Twenty years ago, I was writing about cycling and coaching. The coffee companion remains, this Helen still cycles, …
In the last post, I shared some of my experience of the training route to becoming a psychotherapist. This week, some more reflections from a less theoretical perspective… One main difference between a formative counselling training and a progression into psychotherapy training is that in the latter, one is now qualified and spending more time …
Last week, I started to share some of the thoughts I have been brewing concerning my own journey of being and becoming a psychotherapist. This writing prompt has been in service not only of my current book project, but also as I gather momentum on a research paper I hope to submit this spring: one …